Friday, August 26, 2011

Just here, we of the “Howitzer” suffered our first, and only, loss in this day’s fighting. Cary Eggleston, “No. 1” at third gun, had his arm shattered, and almost cut away from his body, by a fragment of shell. He quietly handed his rammer to John Ayres, who that instant came up to the gun, and said, “Here Johnny, you take it and go ahead!” Then, g...ripping his arm with his other hand, partly to stop the fast flowing blood, he turned to his comrades, and said in his jocular way, “Boys, I can never handle a sponge-staff any more. I reckon I’ll have to go to teaching school.”

Then he stood a while, looking at the men working the gun. They urged him to go to the rear; he would not for a while. When he consented to go, they wanted to send a man with him, but he refused, and walked off by himself. As he passed back an infantry officer, seeing what an awful wound he had, and the streaming blood, insisted that one of the men should go and help him to the hospital. “No,” he said; “I’m all right, and you haven’t got any men to spare from here.” So, holding his own arm, and compressing the artery with his thumb, he got to the hospital.

His arm was amputated, and a few days after, as the battery passed through Spottsylvania Court House, we went by the Court House building, used as a hospital, where he lay on the floor, and bade him “good-bye.” He was just as cheerful, and bright, as ever, and full of eager interest in all that was going on. Said “Since he had time to think about it, he believed he could handle a sponge-staff with one hand; was going to practice it soon as he could get up, and would be back at his post before long.”

The next day, the brave young fellow died. The “Howitzers” will always remember him tenderly. No braver, cooler warrior ever lived! Always bright, full of fun in camp, and on the march, he was at the gun in action, the best “No. 1” I ever saw. One of the few men I ever knew who really seemed to enjoy a fight. His bearing, when he was wounded, was simply heroic. No wounded knight ever passed off his last battlefield in nobler sort. All honor to his memory!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

We had witnessed all these horrors, with our own eyes, days before, from our lines, and had been helpless to do anything for them. Hundreds of wounded Federal soldiers lay between the lines, day after day, and perished for want of help. Several of us, unable to bear the sight of their suffering, went out one day to carry them food and water, and the Federals fired upon us, and wounded one of our men, then we had to leave them alone. They could not or would not care for their wounded, and would not let us do it. It was stated among us that General Lee had sent an offer to General Grant to permit him to send, and care for his wounded, near our lines; and he refused. And then General Lee offered, if Grant would suspend hostilities for some hours, that we would care for his wounded rather than see them suffer, and die, before our eyes; Grant refused that proposal too!

Certain it is, these poor fellows were left to their fate and perished, miserably, by wounds and famine, and fire. Their many dead, in our front, lay unburied until the odor from them was so dreadful that we could hardly stay in our works. It may be that General Grant had this in mind, and was determined that, if his live soldiers couldn’t drive us out of the works, his dead ones should. Well! he had his way of making war! And on account of his inhumanity to his wounded, his own men thought as ours did, that his way was very brutal! I heard his own men curse him bitterly. They called him “The Butcher” in those days. The feeling of his army to him was widely different from our feeling for our General.

All those dead soldiers along a line of five miles lay rotting on the ground, until we had gone away, and the people of the country neighborhood had to collect them from the fields, and thickets, and bury them, for fear of pestilence. And when one remembers that from Thursday, the 5th of May, to Thursday, the 12th of May, General Grant had lost 40,000 in killed and wounded, the dread sight of death and suffering we looked upon, can be imagined! The thronging lines of unburied dead,—it was a shocking and appalling spectacle!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

General Lee had come in an ace of being captured. A body of the enemy had pushed through a gap in our line and unexpectedly come right upon the old General, who was quietly sitting upon his horse. That, these fellows could with perfect ease have taken, or shot him, but that he had quietly ridden off, and the enemy not knowing who it was, made no special effort to molest him.

I wish you could have seen the appalled look that fell on the faces of the men, as they listened to this. Although the danger was past an hour ago, they were as pale and startled and shocked as if it were enacting then. The bare idea of anything happening to General Lee was enough to make a man sick, and I assure you it took all the starch out of us for a few minutes.

I don’t know how it was, but somehow, it never occurred to us that anything could happen to General Lee. Of course, we knew that he was often exposed, like the rest of us. We had seen him often enough under hot fire. And, by the way, I believe that the one only thing General Lee ever did, that the men in this army thought he ought not to do, was going under fire. We thought him perfect in motive, deed and judgment; he could do no wrong, could make no mistake, but this,—that he was too careless in the way he went about a battlefield. Three different times, during these very fights, at points of danger, he was urged to leave the spot, as it was “not the place for him.” At last he said, “I wish I knew where my place is on the battlefield; wherever I go some one tells me that is not the place for me.”

But, he would go! He wanted to see things for himself, and he wished his men to know, that he was looking after them, both seeing that they did their duty, and caring for them. And certainly, the sight of his beloved face was like the sun to his men for cheer and encouragement. Every man thought less of personal danger, and no man thought of failure after he had seen General Lee riding along the lines. Nobody will ever quite understand what that old man was to us, his soldiers! What absolute confidence we felt in him! What love and devotion we had, what enthusiastic admiration, what filial affection, we cherished for him. We loved him like a father, and thought about him as a devout old Roman thought of the God of War. Anything happen to him! It would have broken our hearts, for one thing, and, we could no more think of the “Army of Northern Virginia” without General Lee, at its head, than we could picture the day without the sun shining in the heavens.

An incident illustrating this feeling was taking place up in the front just about the time we were hearing the news of the General’s narrow escape.

As the Texan Brigade of Longstreet’s Corps, just come up, dashed upon the heavy ranks of the Federals, they passed General Lee with a rousing cheer. The old General, anxious and excited by the critical moment, thrilling with sympathy in their gallant bearing, started to ride in, with them, to the charge. It was told me the next day by some of the Texans, who witnessed it, that the instant the men, unaware of his presence with them before, saw the General along with them in that furious fire, they cried out in pleading tones—“Go back, General Lee. We swear we won’t go on, if you don’t go back. You shall not stay here in this fire!We’ll charge clear through the wilderness if you will only go back.” And they said, numbers of the men crowded about the General, and begged him, with tears, to return, and some caught hold of his feet, and some his bridle rein, and turned his horse round, and led him back a few steps,—all the time pleading with him.

And then, the General seeing the feelings of his men, and that he was actually checking the charge by their anxiety for him, said, “I’ll go, my men, if you will drive back those people,” and he rode off, they said, with his head down, and they saw tears rolling down his cheeks. And they said, many of the men were sobbing aloud, overcome by this touching scene. Then with one yell, and the tears on their faces, those noble fellows hurled themselves on the masses of the enemy like a thunderbolt.

Not only did they stop the advance, but their resistless fury swept all before it and they followed the broken Federals half a mile. They redeemed their promise to General Lee. Eight hundred of them went in, four hundred, only, came out. They covered with glory that day, not only themselves, who did such deeds, but their leader, who could inspire such feelings at such a moment in the hearts of these men. Half their number fell in that splendid charge, but—they saved the line, and they gloriously redeemed their promise to General Lee—“We’ll do all you want, if you will only get out of fire.” I cannot think of anything stronger than to say that—

This General, and these soldiers, were worthy of each other. There is no higher praise!

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I think the post speaks for itself, but there is another reason I chose to post it!
The attitude that southerners have to this day, not only about General Lee but about every man who wore the gray!
We still love and respect all of them. Even the ones who some say don’t exist! And I think this is a feeling that is special in the south. In the same way Lees’ men loved him and wanted to protect him, we as southerners still love and want to protect all of our southern ancestors.

And I think that is one thing that eats at our detractors. We still love and defend our men in gray; the color of their skin doesn’t matter. Their status as free or slave doesn’t matter. It was the content of their heart.

God bless them all, and may we never give up on standing our ground, to show our love and respect for all of them!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Sometimes, some folks logic defies my understanding !
The Folks from up north have a marker that glorifies the use of slaves to build the U.S. Capitol !
It pays honor to their efforts!
Were the slaves willing participants?
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I guess if the North used slaves for labor that's OK, However-----

Andy Hall posted this

The force of negroes on the island consists of 481 effective men. Of these 40 are at the saw-mills, 100 cutting and carrying sod (as all the works are of sand, consequently the sodding must be done all over the works), 40 carrying timber and iron, which leaves 301 on the works, including [harbor] obstructions. The whole force of negroes consists, as above, of 481 effective, 42 cooks, 78 sick; total, 601.
In order to complete the defenses of Galveston it will require the labor of 1,000 negroes during three weeks, or eight weeks with the present force. The work of soldiers amounts to very little, as the officers seem to have no control whatever over their men. The number of soldiers at work is about 100 men, whose work amount to 10 negroes’ work.

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Now then would it be OK to place a marker to honor the Impressed Slaves who worked on fortifications in the south?

Or better yet a marker in a cotton field!

I somehow feel the NAACP would be up in arms over such a marker!

But what's the difference?

Geographical location !

I guess it's OK to uphold and honor slavery in the north, but the "Evil South" can not make the same claim!

So what's up with that ?

If the South was "Wrong" by using unwilling Impressed Slaves during the war, how can the North be "Right" for doing the same thing?

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

We started early and moved in the direction of Appomattox Courthouse. When reaching that place it was evident we could go no farther, for the enemy, cavalry, infantry and artillery, in countless thousands, were on every side. A shell comes hurtling
down our line—another and another follow fast, and follow faster.
Just as cheerfully and just as defiantly as at Bethel, four years ago, when our hopes were big with the fate and fame of a newborn nation, do our boys go forth to meet them and our guns hurl back their shot and shell. We were but a little band standing there in the soft spring light of that Sabbath morn they were as the sands upon the seashore,or as the leaves upon the forest trees.

The flag of the Army of Northern Virginia
[under whose silken folds so many a gallant comrade, friend, and brother fell,]
all tattered and torn but never dishonored; around staff so many happy memories cluster, is floating above us for the very last time.

Then rode adown our lines that peerless General, Robert Edward Lee—his head all bared, and his noble face all clouded with a sorrow deeper than tongue can tell or pen can paint.
Is it a wonder then that strong men—men "grown old in wars"—weep like children, and tearfully turning from the, to them, saddest sight on earth, silently prepare to go back to their desolated homes ?

Ah ! Neither time, or sorrow, can erase from memory's page the bitterness of that day.

Friday, August 12, 2011

The following post is by Connie Chastin, God Bless Her!

IMO, the purpose of this is to have a post up he can point to when he's accused of anti-Confederate bias and say, "No, I'm not biased. See?"

Frankly -- and this is MY OPINION, a conclusion I've drawn based on my (admittedly limited) lookarounds over there -- that blog is not about the Civil War, or how it's remembered, despite the title. It's about slavery. It's about how slavery is remembered. Even that is a sort of generalization. It's about *Southern* slavery; it's about Southern slaveholding and Southern slaveholders. We know that because of the inattention given to Northern slaveholding and Northern slaveholders, and slave shipping, a basically Northern enterprise.
This is the sort of inattention that will argue with you that the Union was fighting to free the slaves while ignoring that there were five Union slave states and slaves were helping to build the U.S. capitol.

The Civil War, in other words, is a cover for the subject that truly interests pro Yankee bloggers: white Southern evil. When they say "slave women were raped," using the passive voice like that, what they really mean is evil white Southern men raped slave women. When they say slaves were beaten, what they mean is evil Southern white men beat slaves. When they say "slave families were separated" what they mean was evil Southern white men separated slave families
We know it's not about how the Civil War is remembered because of the references to the "Jim Crow white South" -- which occurred long after the war, long after reconstruction. But it does fall within the realm of discussion of evil white Southerners.

The question is, why?

Why such an interest in so evilizing white Southerners? We're no worse than anyone else -- our ancestors were no worse than anyone else. The great majority of antebellum white Southerners owned no slaves. (They have to be evilized by saying, "Well, yeah, but they wanted to. They aspired to being a slave owner some day," though I've never seen anyone offer the "scholarship" that proves it.)

So why? Because Southerners have to be made deserving of the horrific brutality done to them by the north in the war. It is that simple. There may be a few critics, but basically, the United States cannot admit to ever having done anything wrong. But what the north, doing the bidding of the feds, did to the South during the war and for five generations afterward is not justifiable.
So they came down here and killed us, stole everything that wasn't nailed down, burned towns and farms, and laid our region waste; installed a military dictatorship over us, and puppet governments that would put state treasures so deeply in... debt it would take generations to get out, leaving us little or no capital for investments, jobs, schools, and kept us in widespread poverty until almost WWII -- and then ridiculed us for being poor and uneducated.

THAT is why the South -- why *Southerners* (white ones) -- must still be evilized -- in the classroom, on television, on Hollywood's silver screen, in the corporation, the government bureaucracy, even in freakin' video games. Throughout the popular culture. And especially in academia. That mission of keeping Southerners evil is the motive, perhaps buried so deep it isn't recognized, behind all the "Civil War" "scholarship" and that's what all the Sesquicentennial commemorations intend to commemorate, in one way or another.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

At last the war was over, Now Johnny was on his way home.
And silent as most of the others - Passing a wasteland of ashes and stone.

For once on that land stood proud “Dixie” a lady that Johnny loved true.
At the station at home waited Heather, A jealous woman, but John loved her too.

Yes Heather was jealous of Dixie- because Dixie had taken “Her Man”
In her heart Heather tried to forgive her- But Dixie had ruined her plans.

At her church Heather planned to get Married- Then raise children to play in the yard!
But Dixie stole Johnny for four long years - so finding forgiveness was hard.

But now he was “HOME” it was over- yes sweet Heather was waiting for him.
With flowers in hand, she’d wait for this man- Then caress those coarse hairs on his chin.

But at the Station there were so many- in fact it took Heather a while.
When she saw him she greeted him gently- a silent kiss blended with a sad smile.

“Close she sat as they rode back of carriage- past Her Church that was burned to the ground
Then through a charred frame, its all that remained- of what once was there small southern town.

It was then that she noticed the “locket”- her auburn hair sticking out a small crack.
When she gave it to Johnny he Promised- that “Yes Dear- I’ll Bring It Back”So true to his word Johnny had it - but as the carriage passed by the old well.
Heather looked in his face and saw the cold trace - of four years of fighting through Hell.

As the carriage pulled into the back yard - Johnny still had her locket in hand
Heather smiled and kissed him so Gently - closed the lid - Then she buried her man.